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‘Don’t worry. We’ll find him, deal with him. And then I’ll come back and we will talk, Nell.’ There was a wealth of meaning in his voice and a tenderness as he stroked her cheek in farewell that had her choking back tears. He would not feel like that when he discovered what she had done after all her protestations that he could trust her.
‘Be careful,’ she said, covering his hand with hers for a moment. ‘Come back safe.’
But he would be safe, that was her one consolation. The danger would be at her side and it was up to her now to convince Salterton that this persecution must stop. Whatever her father had, or had not done, she was the only Wardale able to deal with the consequences now. Nell scrambled into her warmest clothes, praying that Marcus would believe she was acting for the best. But even if he did not, she thought, it would make no difference. She could not marry him. Somehow that was not much comfort.
Chapter Nineteen
‘Another rope.’ Hal held it up, dark with moisture, a sordid threat dripping limply in his hand.
‘He’s damned arrogant, I’ll say that for him.’ Marcus swung up into the saddle, scanning the meadow behind the stable block. ‘Look at this trail.’
‘He wasn’t expecting to be surprised and thought the snow would soon blow in to fill the tracks,’ Hal countered, stuffing the rope into his saddlebag. ‘And it will, if we don’t get a move on.’
‘This isn’t a cavalry charge.’ Marcus caught up with him, then held Corinth to a steady canter. ‘Look out for an ambush.’
‘Speaking of which.’ Hal sent him a quizzical look. ‘Are you walking into parson’s mousetrap?’
‘I hope so. If she’ll have me.’
‘You think Nell might refuse you? She’d be mad to.’
‘You said she was sensible not to have me when we last spoke of this.’
‘That was before I had seen you together, and before I knew you were lovers.’
Marcus tightened his lips and rode in silence for a while. It was against his instincts to discuss Nell with anyone and yet, this was his brother and for once Hal looked serious. ‘She doesn’t love me and she can see all too clearly the scandal there would be.’
‘Doesn’t love you?’ Hal sounded incredulous. ‘Then what are you doing in her bed? She’s a good girl, I can tell that. If she’s there, it’s because she loves you.’ He veered off to put his raking bay gelding at a fallen tree trunk.
‘Do I need to tell you, of all people, that women experience sexual desire?’ Marcus enquired as his brother drew level again. ‘It doesn’t occur to you that she may desire me? If she loves me, why not marry me?’
‘Because she loves you, you clodpoll,’ Hal snapped. ‘Do you need it pointed out that some women have as strong a sense of honour as a man does? Nell fears the scandal. Not for herself, I imagine—she can always duck back into obscurity—but for you, for us.’ When Marcus did not answer he added, ‘The two of you are like April and May, even Father’s noticed it, for Heaven’s sake!’
‘He’s noticed what I feel, probably,’ Marcus conceded, still reeling from the novelty of Hal lecturing him. The possibility that he might be right and that Nell really loved him was too important a thought to be explored now.
‘He’s noticed both of you, believe me.’
‘And how is he going to feel about it? He seems to like her.’
‘Pleased?’ Hal ventured. ‘Heal the rift and so forth?’
‘I hope so. But it all depends on her saying yes, which I doubt. She’s damn stubborn.’ Marcus put Corinth to a five-barred gate, then wheeled round to scan the field they had just landed in. The hoof prints ran clear as a blaze diagonally across.
‘Well, that makes two of you.’
Half an hour later Hal stood in his stirrups. ‘Something happened over there, look.’ They cantered up to the area of churned snow in the corner of the high, tangled hedge. Marcus dismounted and squatted down to look.
‘Two horses, one tethered—waiting perhaps? They pushed through the hedge here.’ He clambered through cursing the quickthorn as it pulled at his coat. ‘Two sets of tracks here, heading in different directions. I can’t tell if they’ve both got riders.’
‘We’ll have to split up. Wait the
re.’ Marcus stood while Hal brought the horses through the gate lower down. His gut instinct was telling him something was wrong. They’d been drawn from the house—both of them—on what he was increasingly certain was a feint.
‘I don’t like this,’ he said, remounting. ‘I think we’re being decoyed away. We’ve certainly been led round in a big loop. One lot of tracks are going up into the woods—on this hard ground and with no snow in there, they could double back towards the house.’
‘You take that way, then,’ Hal said. ‘I’ll take this—it looks as though it’s heading for the turnpike.’ He pulled the rifle from its holster and slung it over his shoulder. His eyes, slitted against the snow dazzle, swung from a contemplation of the ground ahead back to Marcus. ‘Watch your back.’
‘And you,’ Marcus called after him as Hal spurred the gelding into a gallop.
